North Pasture Framed by Kitchen Window

Dry-brushed rust over threadbare-green; clusters of goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace; shrubs and the shadows of shrubs. ... After the last cow lumbers from view, the great breathless maples with a touch of yellow in their September green, the great lofty maples in the mellowing sun, take on the patina of an early American oil.

Play Ball!

Late summer, driving by the new little-league diamond, I couldn't help but think of my mom. When did she develop a love for baseball? I remember vague snippets of my childhood: the Big Island, my mother and her sisters playing "mountain ball," the equivalent of slow-pitch softball, all three of them with jeans rolled up to their knees, kicking up the dirt while running around the bases. Growing up in Hawaii, she told me, she used to listen to the New York Giants play ball on the radio. Since moving to the Bay Area in the early '60's, she's now closer to her favorite team. As my dad didn't have an interest in baseball, my love for the game, discovered in the fourth grade, must have come through her. Once I found out how much fun it was to hit the ball as hard and as far as I could, a bat and mitt competed with my violin lessons. I played to both rhythms. The state of my dresses as recess, however, was never the same.